Fastest, Most Secure Infrastructure
Virtualization Software
Virtualization with Xen 3.0 Increases Server Utilization
Enterprises are embracing server virtualization, enabling
them to increase their server utilization, consolidate servers,
and dramatically reduce complexity and overall total cost of
ownership. The Xen 3.0 hypervisor is the fastest and most
secure infrastructure virtualization software available today,
enabling every server in a Linux environment to support
multiple virtual servers each with resource guarantees to
ensure that its application layer SLA is met.
Open Standard Hypervisor Supported by Leading
Enterprise Vendors
Xen 3.0 is an open source technology, the result of a
tremendous community effort, with contributions to date
from over 150 developers world wide, and more than 20
major enterprise infrastructure vendors, as well as the
OSDL and ten top tier universities. Major backers of the
Xen hypervisor include Intel, AMD, Dell, Egenera, HP,
IBM, Mellanox, NetApp, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, Veritas,
and Voltaire.
Virtualize All Operating Systems with Support for
Intel VT Hardware Virtualization
®
Xen 3.0 is the industry’s first virtualization infrastructure
software to support Intel Virtualzation Technology
(VT), which allows virtualized servers to run natively on
the processor. This enables the hypervisor to exploit
hardware acceleration for CPU and memory virtualization
and is key to Xen technology’s ability to virtualize all
operating systems.
Xen 3.0 Virtualizes Server Environments, Enabling Server Consolidation
Streamline Today’s Enterprise Server Environments
Xen 3.0 now supports up to 32-way SMP virtualized
guests, with an ability to “hot plug” CPUs to ensure best
use of available resources, and an ability to dynamically
relocate a running guest from one server to another,
enabling IT managers to optimally place workload on their
available resources. It also offers support for two new
addressing modes for servers with large address spaces:
Physical Address Extension (PAE) allows 32-bit servers to
address more than 4 GB memory, and 64-bit addressing
for up to 8 TB of memory.
Paravirtualization Provides High Security with
Near-Native Performance
Xen technology’s paravirtualization technology is
widely acknowledged as the fastest and most secure
virtualization software in the industry. Xen 3.0 offers
near-native performance for virtual servers, with up to
ten times less overhead than proprietary virtualization
software, and benchmarked overhead of well under 5%
in most cases compared to 35% or higher overhead for
non-paravirtualized virtualization technologies.
The Xen hypervisor’s paravirtualization technology
avoids the need to dynamically patch the operating
system of a running virtual server – a slow and insecure
technique used in today’s proprietary x86 virtualization
products – cutting virtualization overhead and increasing
performance. This enables virtual servers to run
Xen 3.0 Data Sheet V06012006
In Paravirtualization, Guest OS and Hypervisor Collaborate to Achieve Optimal Performance

natively, at full processor speed, while Xen technology
guarantees precise control of per-virtual server CPU,
memory and I/O resources. Paravirtualized guests
running on Xen technology typically incur between 0.1
percent and 3.5 percent overhead for virtualization,
up to 10 times less than today’s proprietary software
virtualization products. The Xen hypervisor’s I/O model
re-uses standard Linux device drivers, ensuring superb
device support and minimizing certification headaches.
Improve Business Continuity and
Streamline the Application Lifecycle
Xen 3.0 provides business continuity and high
availability through dynamic provisioning, allowing
applications to be migrated in cases of server failure
to a backup pool of server resources with less than
100 ms migration time. It also enables IT managers to
streamline the application lifecycle, enabling seamless
migration of applications from test and development
to data center environments by moving them from one
virtual server to another.

Technical Specifications
• Enterprise Linux guest operating systems supported: Red Hat- • S upports up to 32-way, 32 bit SMP guests
Enterprise Linux 3.5, 4.1, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.2; • Physical Address Extension (PAE) support for 32 bit servers
Also Fedora Core 4, CentOS 4, SUSE Open Linux 10, Debian with up to 64GB memory
and others • Live virtual server relocation in typically less than 100 ms
• Intel VT-x support

For a list of supported hardware, visit www.xensource.com

About XenSource™, Inc. XenSource™, Inc. develops enterprise-grade virtualization solutions based on the industry’s
fastest and most secure server virtualization technology, the open source Xen™ hypervisor. Founded and run by the orig-
inal Xen™ development team, XenSource™ products allow enterprises to realize the TCO savings that result from server
consolidation, increased utilization, and reduced complexity in the datacenter. Find out more at www.xensource.com

Delivering the Power of Xen

XenSource, Inc. 2300 Geng Road Suite 250
Palo Alto, California 94303 USA

+1 650 798-5900 info@xensource.com

www.xensource.com

Copyright © 2005-2006 XenSource, Inc. All rights reserved. Xen 3.0 Data Sheet V06012006